Java - History

A programming language consists of a syntax and a set of rules that may be used to issue a sequence of commands called a 'program' to a computer. Computer programs carry out tasks that range from simple to incredibly complex. Computer programs are endebbed in just about all contemporary products such as mobile phones and wireless gadgets, electronic products from televisions to washing machines, automobiles, aircraft, space missiles and shuttles, and cutting-edge tools and equipments utilized in various fields from meteorology to medicine. Computer programs require a certain environment - a computing device of some sort loaded with a specific software to run - this environment is called a platform.

Java technology originated ten years ago. Originally called “Oak”, it is both a programming language and a platform, and was developed as part of the Green project at Sun Microsystems during the early nineties. As part of the project, a product-oriented research team carried out intensive research on current computing trends at that time. They were convinced that a convergence of consumer and computing devices was in the offing, and developed an interactive hand-held computing device which incorporated an animated user interface. This computing device, which ran on a new processor-independent language called “Oak” was able to communicate with, and control, a wide variety of entertainment-oriented appliances. Although the team originally targeted the cable industry, among others, as potential end-users of this technology, it was the internet related technologies which first utilized and gained the benefits of Java.

Java has offered a mechanism to display interactive tools and programs on a web page alongside static HTML at a time when no other such tool existed. A browser called “Webrunner” capable of running interactive Java programs called 'applets' was developed by the team and was demonstrated in 1995. Later that year, the team uploaded the Java source codes on the internet, so that a select community of developers could download and use them to program new applets for the Webrunner. Since then, Java has become extremely popular in the software community. Java technology was formally presented in a public demonstration (broadcast worldwide) at the May 1995 Sunworld conference.

The technology's growth after this point has been phenomenal. As of 2005, over two and a half million developers already used Java, and Java technology-enabled devices numbered in the billions. Most likely, the Java-based technology that runs several features and games on your cell phone and PDA, was the same technology that powered the MARS rover as it successfully touched the planet's surface in 2004.